Appellate

  • May 15, 2026

    Burford Tells Justices 3rd Circ. Botched Arbitration Question

    Litigation funder Burford Capital is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Third Circuit decision dismissing on jurisdictional grounds its bid to arbitrate a dispute relating to German antitrust litigation, arguing that the appeals court committed a "fundamental error."

  • May 15, 2026

    9th Circ. Won't Revisit Wash. Professor Free Speech Ruling

    The Ninth Circuit won't revisit a decision saying the University of Washington violated a computer science professor's First Amendment rights after he voiced opposition to the school's policy that acknowledges Indigenous tribes as the traditional caretakers of the campus' land.

  • May 15, 2026

    Detroit-Area School Found Immune In Suit Over Student Injury

    The Michigan state appeals court has said a Detroit-area school district is not liable for a student's finger being amputated after a school bus-boarding mishap because the district is protected by governmental immunity from negligence lawsuits.

  • May 15, 2026

    Texas Justices Revive Anti-SLAPP Bid In Abortion Fund Suit

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday revived a woman's anti-SLAPP bid in an abortion fund's suit against her, holding that the suit was filed in response to the woman's earlier attempt to investigate the fund's deputy director for potential violations of state abortion law.

  • May 15, 2026

    Alex Jones Can 'Freely Compete' With Infowars, Court Told

    The operator of Infowars says bankrupt broadcaster Alex Jones has a legal right to "freely compete" with his former outlet, telling a Texas appeals court the website shut down because a court-appointed receiver failed to pay a third-party streaming service, not because Jones absconded with its property.

  • May 15, 2026

    6th Circ. Upholds $10M Verdict Against Detective In Brady Suit

    The Sixth Circuit has upheld a $10 million jury verdict for a Michigan man who spent more than six years in prison before prosecutors concluded he was not guilty of murder, ruling that a Detroit detective could not use the man's vacated conviction to block his civil rights suit.

  • May 15, 2026

    NC Social Worker Wants Resentencing In Medicaid Fraud Suit

    A clinical social worker in North Carolina serving more than 11 years in prison on healthcare fraud charges is challenging her sentence in the Fourth Circuit, saying Thursday that a lower court used overly generalized findings to apply a vulnerable victim sentence enhancement.

  • May 15, 2026

    6th Circ. Won't Rehear Kellogg, FedEx Mortality Table Suits

    The Sixth Circuit on Friday refused to rethink a panel's earlier decision that revived two proposed class actions against cereal giant Kellogg and transportation company FedEx in which retirees allege that their pension payments were lowballed due to outdated mortality tables used in conversions.

  • May 15, 2026

    American Airlines Must Face Suit Over Teen's In-Flight Death

    The Fifth Circuit partially revived a lawsuit claiming American Airlines caused a teen's death when an on-flight defibrillator used to shock his heart allegedly malfunctioned, ruling Thursday that a genuine dispute remains whether the airline equipped the flight with a working defibrillator as required by the Federal Aviation Administration.

  • May 15, 2026

    Panel Fights Fla. Judge's Bid To Rethink Ethics Ruling

    A judicial panel is arguing a "key premise" is "incorrect" in a Florida appellate judge's bid for reconsideration of the denial of her motion to dismiss allegations that she attempted to influence lower court proceedings for an incarcerated man formerly on death row.

  • May 15, 2026

    Trade Probes Likely To Be Strong Bulwark For Trump's Tariffs

    President Donald Trump will likely deploy new tariffs this summer across numerous countries under a law that provides the federal government with its strongest legal footing yet in federal court for a global tariff regime.

  • May 15, 2026

    X.AI Urges 9th Circ. To Block Calif. AI Data Disclosure Law

    Elon Musk's company, X.AI LLC, has asked the Ninth Circuit to overturn a California court's refusal to block a state law that requires artificial intelligence developers to publicly disclose details about their training data, saying the judge's decision was "flawed from top to bottom."

  • May 15, 2026

    Veterans Group Asks Fed. Circ. To Toss VA Abortion Ban Rule

    The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs violated a federal rulemaking law when it enacted a 2025 regulation that banned abortion care and abortion counseling, a minority veterans group told the Federal Circuit on Friday, asking the court to toss out the rule because it's arbitrary and capricious. 

  • May 15, 2026

    Balancing The Scales: Justices To Revisit Sentencing Rules

    The U.S. Supreme Court will take a closer look at a circuit split over the deference that should be allotted to U.S. Sentencing Commission commentary, and a man convicted in the killing of an infant has been released after 27 years served over evidence that points to pneumonia as the likely cause of death.

  • May 15, 2026

    Girardi Trial Judge Josephine Staton To Take Senior Status

    The California federal judge who sentenced disgraced trial attorney Tom Girardi to prison for wire fraud last year has announced that she'll be taking senior status in the fall, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint her successor.

  • May 15, 2026

    8th Circ. Wells Fargo Ruling Focuses On Establishing Injury

    The Eighth Circuit's recent decision affirming the dismissal of a proposed class action claiming Wells Fargo misspent 401(k) forfeitures won't dissuade workers from filing similar suits, attorneys say, but those plan participants will likely include more details on how they were allegedly hurt.

  • May 15, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Upholds Tin Tariff Exclusion Rejections For Canner

    A Federal Circuit panel on Friday found the U.S. Department of Commerce didn't violate any rules when it blocked the country's largest vegetable can producer from securing tariff exclusions for its imported tin, affirming a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling.

  • May 15, 2026

    5th Circ. Faults NLRB's Take On Starbucks Worker's Language

    The Fifth Circuit has ordered the National Labor Relations Board to rethink a ruling that Starbucks unfairly fired a union backer who sent profane messages and opened its mail, saying the board did not grapple with evidence showing his "extreme" words were an outlier in a workplace that tolerated some profanity.

  • May 15, 2026

    Judge Splits From Texas High Court In Jail-Courtroom Case

    A judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has dissented from his colleagues' decision not to accept a petition from a man who said the decision to hold his murder trial inside a county jail violated state law.

  • May 15, 2026

    6th Circ. Backs Machinery Dealer In Fired Worker's FMLA Suit

    The Sixth Circuit declined to revive a worker's suit claiming a heavy machinery dealer fired him for seeking leave to manage his mental health and that his union failed to challenge his termination, ruling he lacked evidence that prejudice informed his firing rather than his performance issues.

  • May 14, 2026

    8th Circ. Backs Dismissal Of Horse Breeder's Malpractice Suit

    The Eighth Circuit said a federal judge was right to dismiss a malpractice suit a Minnesota horse breeder brought against Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP and one of its former attorneys for mishandling malpractice cases against three other firms.

  • May 14, 2026

    Platinum Execs, Feds Spar Amid $70M Bond Fraud Appeals

    The Second Circuit on Thursday once again weighed the nearly decadelong fraud case against former Platinum Partners executives, which has led to hard-fought trials, convictions, acquittals, appellate reversals and even a presidential pardon, as defense counsel and the government alike argued that a litany of errors demand rectification.

  • May 14, 2026

    Freight Brokers Brace For New Risks After High Court Ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday shattered what freight brokers believed was an ironclad shield against state-based negligence and injury claims over catastrophic accidents, as the trucking industry's middlemen face heightened legal exposure and question what reasonable care means in selecting motor carriers for a transport, experts say.

  • May 14, 2026

    Thomas Urges Defense Of Constitution At Judicial Conference

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas urged attendees at the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Conference on Thursday to "stand up" for the U.S. Constitution and to see the positives in the country, despite its flaws, on its 250th birthday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Boulder Tent Ban Survives Colo. Rights Challenge Appeal

    A Colorado Court of Appeals panel unanimously found that two city of Boulder ordinances that ban sheltering in public spaces don't violate the Colorado Constitution, shooting down constitutional challenges from a now-defunct nonprofit and several Boulder residents, according to an opinion announced Thursday.

Expert Analysis

  • A Framework For Habeas Relief After 5th Circ. Bond Ruling

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    Following the Fifth Circuit’s recent Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi decision foreclosing statutory bond for detained nonimmigrants not deemed admitted to the U.S., lawyers should adopt a framework that requests habeas relief pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • 4th Circ. Ruling Will Rewrite Class Action Litigation Strategies

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Oliver v. Navy Federal Credit Union is the first from a federal circuit court to hold that motions to strike are inappropriate vehicles for challenging class allegations at the pleading stage, invalidating a tactic that had been used for decades, says Jim Francis at Francis Mailman.

  • Startup Founder Disputes Increasingly Turn On Governance

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    Recent Delaware developments suggest that as courts place increasing emphasis on board process, independence and oversight in founder-led startups, the growing intersection of governance, technology risk and investor oversight is accelerating both the emergence and escalation of founder disputes, says mediator Frank Burke.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Salt-N-Pepa Suit May Shake Up Music Copyright Issue

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    James v. UMG Recordings is a copyright termination rights case that provides an opportunity for the Second Circuit to make concrete choices about grant language, authorship, work-for-hire status and survival of derivative works, says attorney Abdul Abdullahi.

  • Opinion

    5th Circ.'s Abortion Pill Order Is Shaky On Multiple Grounds

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    The Fifth Circuit's recent order in Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, reinstating an in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion medication mifepristone, seems to turn federalism upside-down, and is also questionable for several other reasons, says Gregory Curtner at Curtner Law.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

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    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • 5 Takeaways From Justices' Subpoena Fight Ruling

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in First Choice v. Davenport fortifies a line of First Amendment associational privacy cases stretching back nearly 70 years, and ensures that organizations subject to government demands for donor information have a meaningful federal forum in which to defend their constitutional rights, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Where The Preemption Fight Over Prediction Markets Stands

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    While the Third Circuit's recent ruling in Kalshi v. Flaherty remains a significant win for the federal government in its quest to regulate prediction markets, the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits appear more skeptical, indicating that this fight is likely headed for the Supreme Court, says Johnny ElHachem at Holland & Knight.

  • Md. Justices' State Climate Tort Ban May Shape National Path

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    The Maryland Supreme Court’s recent ruling that federal law preempted state-level deceptive marketing tort claims brought by several municipalities could offer the U.S. Supreme Court a road map to use in the pending Suncor Energy v. Boulder County case to exclude states from the business of regulating global emissions, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • 4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

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    Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

  • What Justices Are Focusing On In 'Skinny Label' Patent Case

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    Though Hikma v. Amarin appears to be a patent dispute that could reshape inducement doctrine in the pharmaceutical context, oral argument suggests the U.S. Supreme Court may treat this as primarily a pleading-stage dispute, with important unresolved questions lurking beneath the surface, says Shashank Upadhye at Upadhye Tang.

  • Employer Tips After 4th Circ. Rejects Trimmed Suit Deadlines

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent holding in Thomas v. EOTech that employers cannot use contractual provisions to shorten statutory filing periods for Title VII or Age Discrimination in Employment Act claims offers a warning for employers to review any such documents and reassess their litigation risk, say attorneys at Ogletree.

  • Binance Win Shows Constraints On Anti-Terrorism Act Claims

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    The Southern District of New York's recent ruling in Troell v. Binance illustrates that the Second Circuit's earlier decision in Ashley v. Deutsche Bank is holding weight with courts, and companies facing aiding and abetting risk should thus monitor evolving case law and assess exposure based on nexus allegations, say attorneys at Freshfields.

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